The Unexpected Everything (47 page)

I let out a long breath. “Well . . .” Sitting between us, the elephant in the room, was that this had been a secret. That the only reason I knew—the only reason we were having this conversation—was because I'd caught them. That this might have been a different conversation if she'd told Toby before anything had happened with Wyatt. But now . . .

I played this through to the end, and it hit me. Just what this meant, really. For all of us. Because there was no way we got out of this, as a group, still okay. Even if Bri and Wyatt came clean now, I didn't see Toby getting over this any time soon. If she found out by accident, it would be the same thing—but probably worse. There was no way out of this, unless . . .

Unless Toby never found out.

I pushed myself up to standing and walked over to the couch in Bri's room, the one that was parallel to the bed, and felt something
inside of me click back into place. Peter's words from this morning were echoing in my head. We had to shape this narrative and figure out a plan while we still could. This was still fixable.

It
had
to be fixable. The four of us had to be okay. My friends had been the one thing I could always count on, and with everything else beginning to spin out of my control, I needed us to stay together. My dad might have a foot out the door, but I wasn't about to let us fall apart.

“Bri,” I said, leaning forward. “Tell me how you see that playing out. You telling Toby you've been sneaking around all summer and lying to her.”

Bri's chin trembled slightly as she pulled at a thread on her comforter. “I . . . ,” she started, then shook her head.

“Exactly,” I said, not looking away from Bri. “So . . . what if she doesn't need to know? What if she doesn't have to go through all that?”

Bri blinked at me. “Andie?”

“Who does it benefit for her to find out?” I asked, making my voice as calm and reasonable as possible. “You've been keeping this a secret all summer. What's a few more weeks?”

“What do you mean?” Bri asked, though the expression on her face told me she knew exactly what I meant.

“I mean,” I hesitated, then made myself say it. “Have you guys talked about what is going to happen when Wyatt leaves?”

“No,” she said, and I could hear her start to get defensive. “Have you and Clark?”

I swallowed hard. “No,” I admitted, feeling my heart clench, the way it always did when I had to think about this. “But,” I said, trying to focus on Bri as I told myself that ours wasn't even
close to the same situation, “do you think that this is . . . like, a long-term thing?” I winced even as I said it and braced myself for her to throw the same question back at me, one about Clark that I couldn't come close to answering.

Bri looked down at the floor, and I could see her lip was trembling and I felt horrible for putting her through this. I told myself firmly that this was for the best—not only for Bri, but for all of us. “I don't know,” she finally said, in a half whisper.

“That's okay,” I said, sitting down next to her. “And it's understandable. You guys are still figuring it out. But since you're not totally sure it's going to be a long-term thing . . .” I let my sentence trail off, hoping that Bri would fill in the blanks.

“What if Toby finds out that we were both keeping this from her?” Bri finally asked, looking up at me. “And Palmer, too. How do you see
that
playing out?”

“I think it's better than the alternative,” I finally said. “Don't you?”

I held my breath while I watched Bri struggle with this. She had to be able to see it. Because the four of us, together, was everything. And we had to stay that way—we had to do what we had to to make it happen.

“Okay,” Bri finally said, nodding once.

“It's for the best,” I said, feeling relief flood through me. “For all of us.”

“You're sure about this,” she said, not exactly phrasing it like a question.

I nodded, quashing any small voices of doubt that were trying to tell me that I was doing this all wrong and that there was more going on here than just Bri and Wyatt. This was the only
way we were going to make it out of this unscathed. And so I nodded and looked Bri right in the eye. “I am.”

Bri nodded, and I felt a weight start to lift off my shoulders. It was all going to be okay. I had the same feeling as when you duck at the very last second and miss something you would have walked right into—realizing just how close you came to danger. And then the relief that followed when you realized you were safe, that everything was going to be fine.

•  •  •

“What do you think?” Clark asked, as he swung his car into the parking lot of the Boxcar Cantina. “I thought it might be nice . . . kind of romantic . . .” He adjusted his glasses, and I saw how nervous he was about his surprise.

“It's great,” I said, leaning across the car and giving him a quick kiss. We hadn't been back here since the night of our first date, and I liked that we were going back now, when everything between us was different, on the cusp of another first.

I started to get out of the car, but Clark practically ran around to my side and opened my door for me. “Thanks,” I said, stepping down and taking the hand he offered me. Clark closed my car door and then slid his arms around me.

“Hi,” he said, pulling me close.

“Hi,” I said back. He leaned down and kissed me, and I kissed him back, until we were pressed up against the side of the car, both of us breathing hard, and my pulse was galloping in my throat. “Um, do we really
have
to have dinner?” I asked, and Clark laughed. But I was only partially kidding. There was a piece of me that wanted to tell him we should skip it, just get back in the car and head straight back to his place.

“So,” he said as he took my hand in his and we walked up to the restaurant, “how was your day?”

“Oh,” I said, feeling myself start to come back down to reality as I thought about the day—starting with Peter showing up in our kitchen and ending with walking in on Bri and Wyatt. I didn't want to tell Clark that everything was fine—he'd be able to see through me, anyway—I just didn't want to have to think about these other things tonight. Tonight was about us. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks, and nothing was going to wreck it. “Well—” I started, just as we reached the hostess podium, and took my opportunity to avoid answering the question.

While Clark gave her his name, I felt my phone buzz in my purse and pulled it out.

TOBY

PALMER

Yes! Tonight's the night!!

TOBY

PALMER

I think Toby wants a picture of what you're wearing.

Me too.

I smiled as I read these, then sent one of the pictures I'd taken when I was getting ready, mostly because I'd had a feeling this conversation would happen. I was wearing one of my favorite dresses and the fanciest underwear I'd ever owned—Bri and I had bought it together last week, and it hadn't even occurred to me then to wonder why she was also getting some for herself.

PALMER

You look amazing!!

TOBY

ME

Thanks, you guys.

PALMER

We can meet up at the diner and discuss tomorrow over waffles!

Keep tradition alive and all.

TOBY

I felt my smile fade as I looked at the screen. For a moment I wished I was back where Palmer and Toby were, not knowing any of this—not knowing that Bri had gone through her first
time without telling any of us, without talking to us about it, without doing the diner recap. And the thought of that just made me sad—not just for Bri, but for all of us.

ME

Right. Totally!

Talk to you guys later.

“Andie?” I looked up to see Clark standing by the hostess, with menus tucked under her arm, and I dropped my phone in my bag as I hurried to join him. We were seated at a table just one over from where we'd been on our first date, and I had a feeling that Clark had done something to arrange it.

“So where was your dad tonight?” Clark asked, as I glanced at the menu and then set it aside, knowing I would get the exact same thing I'd gotten before. “He wasn't lying in wait and telling me that he knows people who know people. Is he feeling okay?”

Clark clearly meant this as a joke, and I gave him a small smile. “He's good, actually,” I said, making my voice much more upbeat than I was currently feeling. I didn't really want to go into it, telling Clark how it had felt seeing Peter standing in our kitchen, seeing my dad slip back into his old mode like it was nothing, like our summer hadn't even happened. If I told Clark about it, it became the truth in a way I wasn't sure I wanted, not tonight. So I smiled at him brightly across the table. “It turns out that he's going to get cleared of any wrongdoing. So he should be back to running for reelection in the fall, everything back to normal soon.” I took a sip of my Diet Coke, needing to avoid Clark's eye and the way he always seemed to be able to read me.

“But . . . I thought he wasn't going to run again. I thought he told you that.”

“Well, it seems like he changed his mind.”

“I'm sorry, Andie,” he said, his voice low and soft. He leaned toward me, and I felt myself, without meaning to, draw slightly back.

“It's fine! It's what was probably always going to happen, right?”

Clark just looked at me for a long moment, his brow furrowing. “Are you okay?” he asked softly. “You seem . . .”

“What?” I asked, not meeting his eye as I folded up the top of my straw wrapper.

“I don't know,” he said after a long moment. The waitress came and took our order—Clark got his Reaper-ito again—and when she'd left and the menus had been cleared away, Clark looked at me across the table, his eyes searching mine.

“Anyway,” I said, looking around for the chips, “that's what happened to me today. How was your day? What did you do?” I was trying to get back to where I'd been just a few minutes ago, but I could hear that my voice wasn't quite right—it was a little shrill, and I was talking faster than usual.